Download e-book for kindle: Analyzing Political Speeches by Christina Schaffner

This quantity offers with political speeches, really commemorative addresses, from the viewpoint of serious discourse research. Such addresses are characterised as consultant and epideictic, as exemplified through an tackle fo the Dutch Queen Beatrix to the Knesset in the course of her 1995 kingdom stopover at to Israel. serious attention is given to the function of rhetoric inside of political discourse anlysis.

Masters of language can flip unassuming phrases into words which are convincing, powerful, and memorably attractive. Lincoln and Churchill had this strength: having heard their phrases as soon as, the reader or listener can scarcely think the area with no them. What are the secrets and techniques of this alchemy? the reply lies in rhetoric within the honorable feel of the be aware – now not the dronings of undesirable politicians, however the paintings of utilizing language to cajole, effect, or another way have an effect on an viewers.

Kochin's radical exploration of rhetoric is equipped round 5 basic suggestions that light up how rhetoric capabilities within the public sphere. to talk persuasively is to carry new issues into life to create a political flow out of a crowd, or a military out of a mob. 5 Chapters on Rhetoric explores our route to issues via our judgments of personality and motion.

Consensus, however, is not an altogether unproblematic notion. It prohibits, of course, that the Queen's speeches be offensive in any way. She cannot directly criticise government policy, nor controversially address 'national' issues or issues that touch national identity. Yet, even though she is to rise above politics, she can still show her personal involvement by choosing certain themes. In general, however, the Queen's avowed distance from everyday life and everyday politics and the indeterminateness of her words will be perceived as contributions to the preferred consensus.

Most epideictic addresses turn out to be 'hybrid' texts because they combine an orientation towards (rhetorical-political) persuasion with an impetus to new 'expressions' which henceforward may be used in order to link socio-cultural practices with personal-political experiences. Therefore, the analytical framework has to be completed by a (critical) discourse analytical approach. Both approaches, the rhetorical and the discourse analytical, are applied to an analysis of (parts of) Dutch Queen Beatrix' speech to the Israeli Parliament.

At the time of public debate, the decision has already been made. (At any rate this applies to the continental European system of parliamentary decision making). Most decisions in the Dutch parliament are made in parliamentary parties; public speeches can usually be characterised as additional explanations or clarifications for the general public of decisions already made, they are no longer relevant for decision making itself. Hence, we could say that most parliamentary speeches are redundantwhich is quite the opposite of calling them singular events according to the classical genus deliberativum.